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Monday, March 2, 2015

Blizzard Announces WoW Tokens

Earlier today, Blizzard announced a new
feature that will be coming to World of Warcraft soon. The new
feature is the ability to purchase game time tokens and sell them on
the Auction House. You can find more details about this upcoming
addition to WoW on the official website, but here are the basic
details.

You will be able to buy a token and
sell it on the auction house immediately. Unlike other items where
you set the price, the price for the token will be fixed and based on
region. At this time it is unknown how much the token will cost in
either real world money or gold. All that is known is that the gold
cost for tokens will adjust dynamically based on supply and demand.
I imagine Blizzard did this not only because of the ever changing
value of real world currency, but in order to prevent the sheer
amount of undercutting that goes on in the Auction House due to many
a player lacking even the most basic concept of economics.

Take a look at the Swift Lovebird mount being sold. This is an example of undercutting in the auction house.

For players that have reached the gold
cap (which is 999k gold at present), this would be a great feature
that would allow them to maintain a WoW subscription without having
to pay a single cent provided they can buy a token every thirty days,
which is the amount of time each token is worth. The current release
date for this feature has yet to be determined.

As far as my opinion goes, I think the
idea is interesting. It is a feature that theoretically serves two
purposes, and can allow players to get gold quick in-game without
relying on shady websites and services that usually end up stealing
their customers account information anyway. As I said earlier, those
who have a seemingly infinite amount of gold will be able to maintain
their subscription through their efforts in-game alone. Not only
that, but those who have some money to spend in real life and are
hurting for some gold in-game will be able to purchase a few tokens
to sell to those who have excessive amounts of gold. Although, just
because the idea has potential, it doesn't mean it will actually work
or be used by the player base. Not only that, but this idea will
require a great deal of care and observation on Blizzard's part.

(Image from WoW official site) This could be an interesting new feature, or a new headache for Blizzard and players.

For example, there will likely be a lot
of balancing and guess work involved with determining prices. How
will Blizzard decide what gold as a currency is worth when compared
to real world money? Will it differ when compared to the euro or the
pound? It is unclear at this point, but it is something that I
intend to keep an eye on. At the very least, it can't be any worse
than the disaster that was the Diablo 3 auction house.

Stay tuned, as more information on this
is released I will keep you all posted!